All About Teaching and Learning Phonics

[tamarind]

Dear all parents,

I just read this very good article, would like to share with everyone :


http://www.colgate.com/app/HealthyHabits/US/EN/ResourcesForParents/ExpertArticles/ReadingWithYourChild.cwsp

By Bernice Cullinan & Brod Bagert
Helping Your Child Learn to Read
(1996). Office of Educational Research and Improvement, U.S. Department of Education.
http://www.rif.org/parents/articles/ReadingWithChild.mspx

There is no more important activity for preparing your child to succeed as a reader than reading aloud together.
Fill your story times with a variety of books. Be consistent, be patient and watch the magic work.

Home is Where the Heart Is
It's no secret that activities at home are an important supplement to the
classroom, but there's more to it than that. There are things that parents
can give children at home that the classrooms cannot give.

Start Young and Stay With It
At just a few months of age, an infant can look at pictures, listen to your
voice and point to objects on cardboard pages. Guide your child by
pointing to the pictures, and say the names of the various objects. By
drawing attention to pictures and associating the words with both pictures
and the real-world objects, your child will learn the importance of language.
Children learn to love the sound of language before they even notice
the existence of printed words on a page. Reading books aloud to
children stimulates their imagination and expands their understanding of
the world. It helps them develop language and listening skills and
prepares them to understand the written word. When the rhythm and
melody of language become a part of a child's life, learning to read will be
as natural as learning to walk and talk.

Even after children learn to read by themselves, it's still important for you to
read aloud together. By reading stories that are on their interest level, but
beyond their reading level, you can stretch young readers' understanding
and motivate them to improve their skills.

It's Part of Life
Although the life of a parent is often hectic, you should try to read with your
child at least once a day at a regularly scheduled time. But don't be
discouraged if you skip a day or don't always keep to your schedule.
Just read to your child as often as you possibly can.

If you have more than one child, try to spend some time reading alone with
each child, especially if they're more than two years apart.
However, it's also fine to read to children at different stages and ages at the
same time. Most children enjoy listening to many types of stories.
When stories are complex, children can still get the idea and can be
encouraged to ask questions. When stories are easy or familiar,
youngsters enjoy these \"old friends\" and may even help in the reading.

Taking the time to read with your children on a regular basis sends an
important message: reading is worthwhile.

[tamarind]

Note that as soon as the child can read on his own, it is best to encourage him to read out loud on his own. This is the best way to make sure that he is paying attention to the words in the book, and it also makes our job much easier, we can just sit back and listen to our kids

[tamarind]

More articles to share :


http://www.theparentszone.com/parenting-skills/ideas-to-make-reading-enjoyable-for-children/

Ideas To Make Reading Enjoyable For Children


Developing reading and language skills in your children at early stages of their life will help your children’s foundation, which they will need in the future to accomplish their maximum potential in life.

If your kid turns away from reading, make their reading task more enjoyable.

Here are a few ideas that you could adopt in making reading much more enjoyable for kids.

Allow your child to pick books

Initially, when your child is averting from reading, give them a choice to select books that they favor.

This way your child’s interest for reading will be elevated and you can also read their mind and thoughts, as it would give you an insight of your child’s interests.

Make an attempt to read with children

When your child is reading, you too get some books and read along with your child. If it’s possible, try to tell other members of your family to read some books every day. This can help your child as it is an inspiration for reading and an example to follow as well.

Read for your child

Most of the children don’t like to go to bed even though they are tired. So, use this time for making them to read some story books. If your child doesn’t like to read, you will read it for them and ask some questions regarding the story. This way you can improve the listening skills in your children.

Make your child read for you

Find some excuses to lure your children to read some books for you. Be attentive to your child while he/she is reading for you and identify the difficult words and phrases for your child and educate your child to understand those profound words.

[hot]

Thanks Tamarind for the advise.


I have already printed out the words listed on your blog  .

BTW, thank you so much on the advise of using P&J, my boy has gone on to book 10 now, I have bought quite a number of books ready for him to read. He is such reluctant reader.. that he does not enjoy the reading at all. Most time, he would request to stop after few pages. Do we need to pause at every pages to explain the meaning of the story when he reads? I think there are words that he does not know the meaning and has no interest at all to carry on and want to stop reading. Also, he tends to go thru the momentum of reading….. “sometimes” he read as “something” “stared” he read as “started”. Keksim  . This is how the boiling point starts.. not because he cant read.. is the attitude towards reading, that is making me :stupid:

Tamarind, you are so right. Parent's full involvement and patience is very important. Repetition is important as well.

[tamarind]

hot:

Thanks Tamarind for the advise.


I have already printed out the words listed on your blog  .

BTW, thank you so much on the advise of using P&J, my boy has gone on to book 10 now, I have bought quite a number of books ready for him to read. He is such reluctant reader.. that he does not enjoy the reading at all. Most time, he would request to stop after few pages. Do we need to pause at every pages to explain the meaning of the story when he reads? I think there are words that he does not know the meaning and has no interest at all to carry on and want to stop reading. Also, he tends to go thru the momentum of reading….. “sometimes” he read as “something” “stared” he read as “started”. Keksim  . This is how the boiling point starts.. not because he cant read.. is the attitude towards reading, that is making me :stupid:

Tamarind, you are so right. Parent's full involvement and patience is very important. Repetition is important as well.

Hi hot,
You can try to let your boy read picture books first, choose funny ones like Curious George and Lafcadio the lion who shot back. These books have pictures on every page which are important in helping kids to understand the story. Then slowly move on to chapter books. I don't pause at every page to explain the meaning, unless my kids ask me questions. They read lots of picture books, so when they read long English novels without pictures, they can understand the story without explanation.

It is very good that he is reading book 10 of the Peter and Jane series now, actually it is not necessary to complete up to book 12 unless the child is very interested. In fact, my boy only read up to book 11a, then he went on to read other books.

[jedamum]

tamarind:

Note that as soon as the child can read on his own, it is best to encourage him to read out loud on his own. This is the best way to make sure that he is paying attention to the words in the book, and it also makes our job much easier, we can just sit back and listen to our kids

I love to listen to him read, but my ds2 complains of dry throat if he reads out loud. So i negotiate with him to read only first page (5 lines etc) if he wants me to read the rest of the book. Or he will read the left page (3-4 lines) if he wants me to read the right page. Then after a few stories, he will start coughing.

[jedamum]

hot:

Hi Tamarind,


My boy learnt phonics at age of 4, but not strong in it. He has difficulties especially words that cannot use phonics to blend. And confused why some “a “ sound this way, sometimes it sounds another way :?

Do you have any suggestion for me how to improve these parts of words?

I am thinking to re-send him back to class to reinforce phonics, what do you think? Else, what can I do to help him?

Any suggestions are welcome
thanks

Hi hot,
my ds1 (now in P3) started phonics basics and had phonics lessons (not upmarket range) in preschool, but could never blend. He could read 'dr-' and '-ink', but when put together, he would go 'dr---ink' without knowing that it means drink. got frustrated a while until i found out about sight words. he managed to master it before p1. Now at P3, he can decipher general/common words using phonics and sometimes does not even bother learning spelling as he can get most correct through phonics :roll: .
my ds2 did not go through phonics class. although his preschool has stronger academic curriculum and a more robust phonics programme, his K1 teacher told me that she was surprised that he can read before they started the programme. I referred to Tamarind's blog on teaching of phonics (Mat, Bat, Rat etc) and used my own learning materials to reinforce at home. I also have the benefit of ds2's phonics material as reference. Although I did not specifically teach blending of longer words, ds2 is able to try blending because we read a lot. Whenever we come across a long/difficult word, I will cover some parts of the word and encourage him to blend. Eg, information, I will cover 'formation', then cover 'mation', then cover 'tion' to get him to read 'in','for','ma','tion', before telling him that all 'tion' reads as 'tion'. so it is part sight reading, part 'blending.

[jedamum]

Hi Tamarind,

My ds2’s reading ability is above his peers, but his speech ability is behind. He mixes up past-present tenses and gender usage (his/her) and his sentence structure is not proper. He was on speech therapy for a while last year, but we were ‘discharged’. Do you suggest that I specifically highlight areas of such grammar rules when doing reading with him? or will it dampen the reading ‘momentum’?

[tamarind]

jedamum:

Hi Tamarind,

My ds2's reading ability is above his peers, but his speech ability is behind. He mixes up past-present tenses and gender usage (his/her) and his sentence structure is not proper. He was on speech therapy for a while last year, but we were 'discharged'. Do you suggest that I specifically highlight areas of such grammar rules when doing reading with him? or will it dampen the reading 'momentum'?

I don't advise you to stop after every sentence to highlight the grammar rules. It will be better to do so after a few paragraphs or one page, so that the flow of reading is not disrupted. We should focus on letting kids enjoy the story first, this is essential for nurturing a child who will be keen to read independently.

In fact, when a child has read a large number of books, it will be easy for him to tell whether a sentence sounds grammatically correct or not, even before he learns all the grammar rules.

[hot]

Hi Jedamun, Tamarind,


The sight word of ‘dr—ink’ is it “drink”?
Can you elaborate more about the transition / mastering of words from blending of letters to sight words?
I used Tamarind’s materials plus some materials from boy’s phonics lesson.
Eg. “ai”
I actually gave the whole sets of word cards (>10) containing “ai” which including Train, rain, pain, pail etc. to him as I know he can read and identify the words.
With the 1st card showing “ai”, he hesitated. He then flipped the 2nd card showing train, he sounded out correctly Train, and went back to tell me the sound of “ai”. With that, he proceeded to read out all the words in the cards correctly.
It meant to say he is able to read the words, but confused with sound in phonics and not phonetic words of the same letter. I used the same method as you by breaking down the long / difficult words… but he can never master the method le…What went wrong???

I listened to him reading book 10a P & J, I dared say he is able to read quite confidently. Could it be many words have been repeated and not many new words? How to transit him from P&J to other books? He has books from Curious George, but not keen to read. For the sake of reading to parents, he chose very simple books… books that has big words few pages de 

I tried him with magic tree series, only 5 to 6 lines in a page, no color pictures… he turned me off. I told him those words are even bigger than P&J, lesser wordy, he sure can read, but he simply not interested.